Why Hanya Yanagihara’s “A Little Life” is Not as Bad as Everyone Thinks
(This article contains spoilers and mentions of trauma, violence, abuse, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, sexual abuse of a minor, self-harm, and death.)
A week before my spring semester finals of my first year of college, I decided to pick up a lofty novel with over 800 pages that I had put off for far too long: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. This book had been trending on Amazon at the time and by the short description given along with Orgasmic Man by Peter Hujar as the cover, I was intrigued and bought it. I had been on a laptop writing countless papers and studying for hours upon hours and I came to the conclusion that a book would do me good. “It would be nice to read something and relax”, I foolishly thought. After two terrible weeks of leaving tears all over the sections of The Happy Years, Dear Comrade, and the closing of Lispenard Street, as well as drowning in final exams, I completed the heart-break and despair of A Little Life. Here is what I have to humbly say about this book:
It is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. And not in the way you’re thinking. The story of Jude St. Francis will forever remain in my brain, there to think back on random days for the rest of my life. It is gut-wrenching, painful, and damning on those who decided to pick up this novel and mistakenly love sweet Jude. This book is *bad* in that sense, yes. However, it is not a bad book. It is wonderfully written and every single page counts (arguably) as all the small stories tethered into a larger story of Jude and his friends Willem, Malcom, and J.B make you feel deeply for these characters and feel nostalgia for them days after finishing this title. This novel was a Man Booker Prize Finalist for a reason. It is a good book.
Here is where confusion starts: many readers pick up this novel and take it as a “gay love story”, or somehow place the title of “romance” as a thin veil over the text. They take it as a story about Jude and Willem. Of Jude, Willem, Malcom, and J.B. This book is about Jude. It is about trauma. Point. Blank. It was never, and will never be a romance novel or anything other than Jude’s trauma spilling onto the lives of people he loves as well as his own.
The beginning chapters of Yanagihara’s A Little Life are constantly switching between Jude, Willem, Malcom, and J.B’s point of view. It is understandable as to why readers group this bunch as a book about four college classmates (the short description of this novel mentions this accordingly). Jude and Willem develop a romance in this story; hence “gay love story”. And with the reader being given no trigger warnings, one can see how they conclude with this thought. This very notion, I believe it to be, as to why people claim it is book that belongs on top of a garbage bag. And for a small moment in time, I decided it wasn’t a good story either. The Goodreads reviews slipped into my preconceived judgment. Just for a while though.
When looking at this novel in the light of it being about Jude’s life long battle with the trauma inflicted upon him during his childhood, it reshapes everything you thought you believed in when reading A Little Life. Jude endured a traumatic childhood of sexual assault, sexual servitude, verbal and physical abuse, being taught to cope with these acts of assault via self-harm, being ran over with a car which led to permanent damage to his legs, et cetera. Jude is severely traumatized.
So traumatized in fact that this is the true weight of all 800+ pages. The trauma that Jude has is what binds these pages together. This book was never meant to be happy. It was never meant for Jude to get better, to live the rest of his life with some unbecoming peace with his lover, Willem, at his side. It was meant to end with the car crash the killed Willem and Malcom to send Jude spiraling which led to his suicide consequently. It was meant to be painful for the reader, to feel all the hope they had for Jude vanish in the last section of this book. The concept of Jude and his fate were created at the same time: a character who didn’t receive a happy ending. The traumas that Jude had lived even long after when it initially happened are the sustenance of A Little Life. They are the ghosts that lurk in some of the book’s happiest moments and once the reader approaches it as such, your love or hatred for the novel will change.
Yet, it is not trauma porn. Trauma porn, defined by The Embody Lab, is the “damaging practice of retelling trauma stories without the presence of new resources”. The things that Jude went through are not otherworldly. Sexual exploitation of minors, domestic violence through ableism, permanent leg injury, self-harm as a coping mechanism, and STI transmission through rape can be true aspects of any given person’s life. To go so far as to argue that a novel set in our real world, with very realistic characters and circumstances is trauma porn and somehow was meant to “arouse” the reader is missing the point completely. This novel is solely about trauma, and how it can take a toll on not only the victim but of the victim’s loved ones as well. It is the backbone of A Little Life. As unfortunate as everything Jude faced was, it all was crucial to the making of Yanagihara’s title.
Closing remarks: while I would never recommend this book to anyone, much less recommend for someone to reread this book again, I will in this instance. Pick up A Little Life with this notion of it being about Jude and his trauma and see how it morphs into a story that was already damning become even more damning. Appreciate and love Jude, Willem, Malcom, and J.B, even if it is a mistake to. Hanya Yanagihara paints a story from the beginning of Judy’s life to its end in washed, yet vivid color. As heartbreaking yet lovely of book A Little Life is, I would not recommend picking it up before finals week, though. That totally was my bad.
